Aarati will give a brief artist talk and workshop that will explore the advantages and limitations of computational (and human) classification of images through participatory and technical exercises. We will discuss how formulating our own taxonomies for personal archives can cultivate new meaning and at the same time how classifications are always approximations and forgetting this can hold us back from noticing the wonderful ways in which archival materials complicate and resist the boxes we place them in. We will walk through some ways to manipulate images using facial recognition and python. Participants can bring in their own photographs (ideally containing ‘faces’) to work with (recommended to bring in at least 10 images, under 1mb, as jpg or png files). Learn more about Aarati at aarati.me. Also risdcodelab.org

Studio Yukiko is a Berlin-based creative agency specialising in creative direction, art direction, brand strategy, concepting and graphic design for commercial and cultural clients alike.

The studio produces award-winning work, unearthing narratives, telling stories of local communities worldwide, and immerses themselves in the trends of internet and youth culture.

Alongside to well known brands, Yukiko has collaborated with galleries, museums, architecture practices and cultural institutions world-wide.
With its research arm, Yukiko continually experiments with contemporary forms of visual storytelling and fosters a deeper understanding of the audiences with which its projects engage.

Yukiko's work has been awarded by D&AD, ADC Germany, TDC New York and Lead Awards. Its Flaneur magazine received Art Directors of the Year at the London Stack Awards as well as Magazine of the Year.

Non-GD students should register on eventbrite

Speaker Series identity by MFA 2023 candidates Sun Ho Lee and Lian Fumerton-Liu

Gemma Copeland, a digital designer and member of Common Knowledge, a not-for-profit worker cooperative, will join the Design & Politics course to discuss how designers work, the role of software in helping labor organizing and more.

The conversation is open to those in the RISD community. For Zoom link and additional context, please visit this Google Doc (requires RISD login).

This spring, RISD GD offers an incredible line-up: 14 electives and 5 workshops! These are spread out throughout the week and will accommodate many different kinds of schedules, from sophomores to degree project to thesis.

Read all of the course descriptions sorted by day.

Registration begins on Monday, Nov. 15. Offered for the very first time are new electives like Shiraz Gallab’s “Gathering: Language, Form, and Process,” John Caserta’s “Design and Politics,” (a graduate-level course), and a UI/UX Design 4–week workshop taught by Ilhee Park (MFA 2022). If you have questions about these classes, reach out to your advisor, or directly to the instructor.

Please join us for a Degree Project info session!

Attendance is required for those doing DP this spring; if you have a conflict, please let us know.

Graphic designer and a web developer Yehwan Song is zooming into Minkyoung Kim’s Graphic Design for the Web to share her work process. Open to GD students and faculty.

Lecture is on Zoom at risd.zoom.us/j/97737442659

More info on Yehwan Song at yhsong.com

Lynne Yun is a NYC-based type designer, educator and technologist who specializes in typography, hand lettering, and calligraphy. She currently teaches for educational institutions such as Type@Cooper, Parsons School of Design, and the Letterform Archive.

Lynne served on the board of AIGA NY and worked as a type designer for Monotype. At Monotype, she created custom typefaces for clients and a number of retail typefaces, including the Trade Gothic Display and Inline families. Lynne has worked with a broad range of clients, including Google, Samsung, Anheuser-Busch, and the World Trade Center. She holds a BFA in graphic design from the School of Visual Arts, a postgraduate certificate in typeface design from Type@Cooper, and a MPS from ITP in New York University. She is a proud member of Alphabettes.

Register for this event.

The GD Triennial, “Portals,” opens to the RISD community on Thursday, Oct. 28, 6:00pm–7:30pm at Woods-Gerry Gallery. The exhibition will be open October 29 through November 14, 2021.

Exhibition hours:
Monday — Saturday, 10–5pm
Sundays, 2–5pm

Woods-Gerry Gallery
62 Prospect Street, 1st floor
Providence, RI

See the triennial website at portals.risd.gd

Deem is a biannual print journal and online platform focused on design as social practice. Our beliefs: Design is the process of adding value. Design is a fundamental shared experience. Design is everywhere. Our intentions: Explore human-centric design frameworks independent of exclusive institutions and industry categories. Ask what design can do for communities by creating conversations that are transdisciplinary and intergenerational. Seek to uncover meaningful narratives, connections, and patterns that might help us better understand our histories and imagine our futures.

Register for this event.

New RISD GD faculty member Shiraz Gallab and Paul Soulellis invite GD students to a conversation about design justice, social practice, critique, and community. This can be an opportunity to get to know each other a bit more, to hear about student experiences here in the department, to share perspectives with one another, and to chat about what’s on your mind.

If you’re interested, please join us for an informal chat in the GD Commons on Friday, October 22, 12pm (for about an hour)!

The RISD GD Triennial runs from Oct. 29 until Nov. 14 — submit work on the theme of “Portals” made in the Department in the last three years (alumni, yes! non-majors, yes!)

Submit your work here by October 21. Physical work needs to be in by Sunday, Oct 24.

On ‘Portals’
Portals are many things: passages, windows, entrances, exits, thresholds, transitions. As visual communicators, our practice is one of opening portals into new ways of disrupting, discovering, and educating. And as we travel through those portals—from a volatile now towards a hazy, but hopeful, future—we must embrace the uncertain, constantly iterative process of that transition.

More info
Contact an organizer with questions: Manny Sodhi, Iris Cho, Yimeng Yao, Annie Din, Ashley Yae, Minjun Choi, Varun Mehta or Christine Wang

Designer Glen Cummings, founding partner of the New York studio MTWTF, will present a cross section of projects that engage, and aim to shape, the public realm through signage, maps, publications, exhibitions and digital media.

“For designers each public project is a chance to learn how some part of a complex “city machine” works, and perhaps an opportunity to give things a little push, or kick, in a good direction.”

Project clients will include: The City of Newark, NJ; Brookings Institution; Participatory Budgeting Project; Design Trust for Public Space; Brooklyn Public Library; The State of New York; Center for Urban Pedagogy; Humanities Action Lab; Columbia University in the City of New York.

Bahia Shehab is a multidisciplinary artist, designer, political activist and historian whose work focuses on the interaction and intersection of modern identity and ancient cultural heritage. Her imaginative combination of calligraphy and Islamic art history produced cutting edge, beautiful, impactful street art during the Arab Spring and continues to inform her work as an educator and designer.

Having always been concerned with identity and preserving cultural heritage, she investigates art history to reinterpret contemporary Arab politics, feminist discourse and social issues. Her culturally oriented work enables her to use history as a means to better understand the present and find solutions for the future.

Bahia believes that art may be employed for the purposes of social change and has explored this phenomenon through her artwork, which focuses on socially charged themes such as the Arab identity and women’s rights. Her research is largely concerned with understanding the Arabic letters and has been preoccupied with Arabic calligraphy in much of her work. Her work has been displayed in exhibitions around the world and she has received several awards and recognition for her achievements.

Register for this event.

RISD GD BFA Undergrads, Faculty, and Staff — JOIN US outside Design Center! We'll all be outside on the canal on Tuesday September 7 from 3:30–5PM to say welcome back : ) with ice cream and smiling faces. Come say hi and see us for the first time in a long while (or your first time ever)!

Sophomores 3:30–4PM
Juniors 4–4:30PM
Seniors 4:30–5PM

[MFA Grads — welcome back meeting at CIT in grad studio, same day, 2PM]

The goal is to be back on campus this fall with a lineup of hybrid courses. These courses are available for registration starting in June.

See the list at risd.gd/home/fall-2021